but until I get an SLR, I think my photographic version of night time shall remain a bit shit and haphazard

lol Jackie. I can keep you good company.

Altho inspired by the tips and pics on here, I dusted off my dslr and captured a night portrait of the house, which turned out wonderful. Would post, but my front door feels insanely personal for some reason. Now have to venture into town or somewhere for some night light action.

Me too, that one was fun. And I was planning on having a Roamin'-themed picture to share. See those pink characters on the map there that say 西胡林天主教堂 (Xīhúlín Catholic Church)? That's been intriguing me ever since I bought that map book. What's a Catholic church doing in what seems to be a small village on the southern edge of Beijing? And marked as a tourist attraction? Surely it must be one of many built by missionaries back before 1949.

And so off I went. Took 45 minutes to drive to the area. Drove around in a circle then back on to the highway. Accidentally crossed the border into Hebei (the grey area in the map - and no, that blue line is not the Yongding River; it's the Yongding River bed. Rivers have water in them. This riverbed had a lot of dried-up long grass, and no, the Gù'ān urban area is no longer limited to that little splotch, but stretches up to the riverbank), turned around and was very grateful to the cop who decided a foreigner didn't need to go through the rather strict (as in checking every car very thoroughly) compulsory (as in the road was blocked so we had to drive through) checkpoint and waved me through, otherwise who knows how long I would've been stuck there. Back over the riverbed then a few more circles through the area this church was supposed to be in. Still no luck, and get very frustrated with the bizarre near-total lack of road signs. Back home, via a petrol station and the weirdest supermarket in Beijing (only 1 customer - me - and a few imported brews, but no milk).

And now, after Baiduing not the church's name, but the website of the Beijing Catholic Association, I find what I was looking for (all in Chinese, but scroll down for a picture).

Well, it would've been early evening NZDT when I was driving in fruitless circles.

Is that the old Ponsonby Fire Station that used to be a restaurant in the late 1970s which was one of the first in NZ to put fruit (such as strawberries) and meet/savoury flavours together for main courses? I went to a very memorable wedding dinner there about 35 years ago.